


Pick a Day and Put on a Nice Suit

by Lily_Padd_23



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Cute, Fluff and Humor, Humor, Love is so gay, M/M, Post-Series, Wedding Fluff, fluffly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 11:54:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17446481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lily_Padd_23/pseuds/Lily_Padd_23
Summary: The morning of Josh and Sam's wedding.





	Pick a Day and Put on a Nice Suit

Pick a Day and Put on a Nice Suit

By Lily Padd

 

 

Josh paced back and forth.  At his sides, his antsy hands jittered, though he could not muster an explanation as to why.

           “Donna,” he bellowed characteristically, “You almost done in there?”

           “Patience, Joshua!” she barked back from the bathroom.  They’d been given the ladies room as their place to get ready.  It smelled good, and there was a little powder room with a soft sofa, a vanity, and a big cushy easy chair.  But Josh still felt ill at ease.  It was a slow morning, he’d been assured.  They’d have the place to themselves.  He still could not get the rattle out of his hands.

Donna stepped out into the powder room and did a twirl in her pale lavender silk pantsuit.

           “What do you think?” she asked.

           “You look lovely,” he responded, “But I’m…”

           “Josh, are you freaking out?” she cut him off and gave him that condescending look she had that just barely hid her affection.

           “Donna, I’m freaking out!” he overlapped emphasizing his outburst by shaking his hands up and down faster.  Donna folded her arms and watched him with a smirk, unable to take him seriously.  Then she began her routine of preening his tux of any little pieces of anything.

           “Is it hot in here?” he went on, falling back into his pacing as she followed behind him to pluck a fallen hair off the back of his collar.

           “If anything, I’d say it’s a bit nippy,” she replied, “Don’t pace a trench into the carpet, Josh, it’s pretty!”

           “Then why am I sweating?” Josh asked.

           “Because you are excited, and your body is physically incapable of processing good news!” Donna grabbed his shoulders to turn him to face her and began fixing his bowtie.  The real one so that at the end of the day he’d look like Tony Bennett.

           “Stop hovering, would ya?” he fidgeted, “It’s making me claustrophobic.”

           “That’s why you asked me to be here, isn’t it,” but it was a statement, not a question.

           “I asked you to be here because you’re very dear to me,” he grabbed her hand and kissed it in mock suaveness.

           “Your chivalry is getting in my way,” she said, returning to her task of fixing his bowtie.  He stood still, but his arms were at loose ends, and his toes wiggled nervously in his shoes.

           “You don’t think that this is all happening too fast?” he quipped down at her.

           “Josh, you and Sam have been together since 1998.  It’s 2016.  Do you know how many years that is?”

           “Eighteen years,” Josh sighed.

           “Your relationship could vote,” Donna said.  Josh let out a chuckle and she continued, “Your relationship could buy cigarettes.  Your relationship could join the army without asking its parents.  Your relationship could have a will drawn up.” She finished the bow tie and patted Josh’s chest, “Nothing about this is _fast_.”

 

She was right.  Even though Josh had proposed less than a week ago.  It was Monday.  Josh proposed the previous Wednesday night.

 

Josh had woken the next morning and trudged from the bedroom, still feeling all glowing and tingly from the night before.  He found Sam in the kitchen, smiling at him from the table.  He poured himself a bowl of cereal and sat on the other side, greeting Sam with a silly, “Good morning, fiancé.”

           “Good morning, fiancé!” Sam gave Josh one of his joyful little head tilts.  They ate quietly for a moment before Sam looked up, his eyes furrowed in thought.

           “This doesn’t mean we have to have some big ceremony or anything, does it?” Sam asked.

Josh set down his spoon and reached both hands across the table to take Sam’s, closing his eyes and tipping his head back in relief.  When he finished chewing his Honey Bunches of Oats, he looked over at Sam and said through a bit of a burp, “God, I knew I loved you for a reason.”

The whole surprise engagement had been enough for Josh to coordinate and he hadn’t even been able to pull _that_ off without a hitch.  Besides, the two of them had lived through too much White House fanfare for a huge party to be remotely appealing.

           “I was just thinking we pick a day, we put on nice suits, we go down to the courthouse,” Sam started, “And then, I don’t know, we can go out for drinks or split a cheesecake from that place on 33rd.”

           “You just want cheesecake from that place on 33rd, don’t you?” Josh half-smiled at him.

           “I do,” Sam picked his hands up from Josh’s grip to wipe the corners of his mouth with his napkin.  “But seriously, what do you think of my plan?”

           “I like it!” Josh said, sitting up in his seat, “When?” he asked.

           “Anytime!” Sam replied.

           “Tomorrow?”

           “Today.” Sam said without missing a beat.  They looked at each other across the table, sizing each other up.

           “Ah-kay.” Josh said skeptically.

           “What’s stopping us?” Sam shrugged.

           “What’s stopping us?” Josh repeated.

           “Really!” Sam asked, “Is there anything that we need that we don’t have now in order to get married today?”

           “I think a marriage license might help,” Josh’s eyebrows were playfully raised at Sam, watching to see if he meant it.

           “So let’s go get a marriage license!” Sam stood up, mind made, “Let’s go. Right now.”

           “You gonna put on pants first?” Josh snorted at him, eyes falling to Sam’s red and black boxer briefs.

           “You know what?” Sam flew past Josh’s remark, “We need witnesses.”

           “And pants!” Josh laughed.

           “I suppose they’ll have people at the courthouse who act as witnesses,” Sam was off in his own thought.

           “Yeah, they probably will, babe, but they won’t have anything at the courthouse that can act as pants!” Josh leaned forward, propping his chin in his hand, just lovingly watching Sam spin around in his head.

           “You know, it might be nice to have the witnesses be our friends.”

           “It might be,” Josh said, “Plus I need a ring.”  He had given Sam a gold ring the night before, one he’d picked out the day of the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling.

           “Well, I have that taken care of!” Sam looked back down at him, back from his train of thought.

           “Y’do?” Josh inquired.

           Sam disappeared into their bedroom, returning with a grey ring box.  Josh looked up at him silently before saying, “How long have you had this?”

           “A while,” was all Sam would concede before Josh opened the box and placed the gold band inside on his own finger.

           “You’re really somethin’ Sam Seaborn,” Josh said softly, “You know that?”

           “We still need witnesses!”

           “And you still need pants.”

 

Josh called dibs on Donna, so Sam asked Toby.  Donna had a charity dinner out of town and was already at the train station, so they couldn’t do that day.  Toby’s daughter, Molly, was coming down from Carnegie Mellon to visit for the weekend and would be getting there Friday.  So they made plans to meet the minute the courthouse opened, 8:30, on Monday.

 

Adjusting his own bowtie, Sam thought about the past few days— filling out papers for the marriage license, going back and forth on whether they would just wear suits or go full out with tuxes, and teasing each other as they were still getting in the habit of wearing their rings.

 

Sam ran a hand across his hair, his eyes falling on the glint of gold on his finger.  He smiled.  He felt completely and utterly calm.  Maybe it was the music, Mozart shuffling from his iPhone propped on the sink, or maybe it was the fact that he had picked out the ring for Josh the day after they’d first said they loved each other, nearly sixteen years ago.  He’d kept it in his sock drawer all these years, when he moved back to California and their relationship consisted of too many lonely airplane flights, late night calls from different time zones, and sending each other dirty e-mails in the middle of the day, just to try and piss the other one off.  He’d kept it when he’d come back to DC and the Santos administration and he and Josh started living together.  As soon as marriage equality passed, he had started planning how to ask Josh, but the right moment did not happen before Josh beat him to it.  And Josh had done it in a very Josh way.

 

Now he was standing in a too-bright men’s room at the Moultrie Courthouse trying to see how his tux looked in the mirror over the sink.  They’d given Josh and Donna the one with the powder room, and he was confined to the small, white and shiny bathroom with no full-body mirror and nowhere to put the stuff for his hair.  But he didn’t care.  He was finally marrying Josh.  And he couldn’t have been happier.

 

The door swung open and in came Toby wearing something tweedy with elbow patches.  It was 8:47, but Sam couldn’t be bothered by the time.

           “Hey, Toby!” he said eagerly.

           “How ya feeling Sam?” Toby asked.

           “Cool as a cucumber!” Sam replied.  He turned to face Toby, and asked, “Do I look okay?”

           “When you’ve asked that question in the past, has the answer ever been anything other than yes?” was Toby’s response.

Sam just gave him a sarcastic, “You certainly dressed for the occasion.”

           “Look, Sam, you told me to come here and sign the thing, I came here, I’m gonna sign the thing, what more do you want from me?” Toby rattled.

          “I’ve missed you, boss,” Sam laughed out loud.

           “You seen Josh? I brought this for him!” he held up a bottle of wine in a blue, velvety bag.

           “No, I haven’t seen Josh,” Sam said, “It’s our wedding day.”

           “How have you not seen Josh? You live together...” Toby gave him a look.

           “We staggered our alarms,” Sam told him, “Donna picked him up while I was in the shower.  We had a whole system.”

Toby rolled his eyes and then let out a low laugh, shaking his head, “You two are ridiculous.”

           “It was a good system!” Sam retorted, “It worked!”

           “Well, where is Josh?” Toby held up the bag.

           “Are you going to get my boyfriend drunk?” Sam said in fake disapproval.

           “Fiancé!” Toby corrected, “And no, it’s an empty bottle for the, uh… the glass breaking after the ceremony.  I thought he might…”

Sam put a hand to his heart.  It hadn’t occurred to him.  “Give it to the officiate. She’s right outside in the black dress. I’m sure she’ll know what to do with it.”

Just then, Sam heard Donna chirping an urgent, “Knock, knock!” as she simultaneously knocked on and opened the door, “Sam, your future husband is in the powder room having something of a nervous breakdown!”

           “What?” Sam gave a surprised laugh.

           “I mean it, I did what I could, but he’s all verklempt!” she replied, throwing her hands in the air, “I think you should get in there!”

Sam sighed warmly, shaking his head and moving around Donna.  As the door closed behind him, he heard Toby telling her, “You and the Yiddish?  It’s gotta stop.”

           “What?  The man’s verklempt!” Donna’s protests got softer as Sam crossed the hall, “There’s not a better word for it!”

 

Sam poked his head in the door and found Josh sitting on the sofa, running his knuckles back and forth over each other.

           “Josh?” he said sweetly.

           “Sam!” Josh stood up quickly, restlessly, and then sat right back down, “What are you doing here?”

           “Donna said something about your being verklempt?” Sam teased.

           “I thought we weren’t supposed to see each other or something.”

Sam brushed it off, “Who cares?”

           “You did!”

           “The only thing I really care about is that we’re getting married,” Sam said.

           “Sam… baby,” Josh whispered, looking up at him, losing his thought process, his mouth slightly ajar. “You look so great.  I mean, you look…”

           “You do, too,” Sam said sitting down beside him on the sofa, “What’s going on, honey?”

          “Do you think we’re ready for this?”

           “Ready for what, Josh?” Sam laughed lightly, “What do you think is going to change?”

           “I don’t want _anything_ to change!” Josh asserted firmly, his brown eyes flickering.  He opened his mouth to say that what they had was already perfect, but he didn’t have to.

           “Nothing’s gonna change!” Sam placed his hand squarely on Josh’s.  “Is that what you’ve been telling yourself?”  Josh looked embarrassed, and Sam laughed a little “Sweetheart!  Nothing’s gonna change!”

           “I didn’t spring this on you?” Josh raised a tentative eyebrow.

           “Josh…” Sam’s voice was completely serene, “I wrote my vows to you before you even proposed.”

           “You wrote vows to me…” Josh repeated lowly, “Before I even proposed?”

Sam’s hand flew to his breast pocket; he patted his chest and reached under his tux to pull out six pages of yellow legal pad paper, folded neatly together.  He handed them to Josh.  Josh swallowed and took them, silently reading every word, his eyes filling with tears, white curls falling across his forehead.  Sam watched him read, a huge smile on his face, a hand still on Josh’s knee.  Josh just let out long, stammering breaths has he read, not allowing himself to look at Sam, not allowing himself to cry at Sam’s words, not allowing himself to do anything but move his eyes across the pages and pages of vows.

Finally, he wiped his nose, looked up at the ceiling, and cleared his throat, “Sam, I… didn’t write anything.”

           “It’s okay,” Sam whispered.

           “I used up all my good stuff for the proposal, and I just forgot to…”

           “Shhh!” Sam instructed gently, “Listen, I don’t care, Josh.  Really.  I can’t _not_ write what I’m feeling.  I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself from doing it.  But I know we’re not having that kind of ceremony.  The officiate will read the Sheva Brachot, say a few words about marriage and commitment, we’ll repeat the pre-written vows, she’ll say we may now kiss, and pronounce us husbands.  And it will be small, and simple, and beautiful, and I’ll never forget a moment of it.  Because Josh, honey, I have been waiting my whole life to marry you.”

A pause fell, and Josh’s lip trembled, so Sam said, “And that’s a pretty long time!” Josh let out a tearful chuckle and Sam added, “Like, half a century. We’re getting pretty old.”

Josh swallowed again, looked away, and looked back at Sam and just barely whispered the words, “You sure are something, Sam Seaborn.”

And Sam placed a delicate little kiss on his lips.  Then he pulled Josh to his feet and squeezed his hands.

           “You ready?” Sam asked to the small space between their faces.

           “Let’s do this,” Josh grinned. Sam pecked his cheek and started for the door, but Josh stopped him by calling out, “Sam!”

Sam swiveled back to him, blue eyes wide and dripping with love.

           “I’m gonna take your name.”  Josh said, his voice now as even and cool as Sam’s.  Sam just blinked for a moment, floored.  “I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and I’m short one name anyway, so I figured I might as well take yours.”

           “So you’ll be…” Sam began.

           “Joshua. Lyman. Seaborn.”

Sam beamed at him, extended his hand for Josh’s, and then breathed, “Come on. Let’s go get married.”

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously, these Honey Bunches of Oats are not mine. Do enjoy and leave feedback! And if you want to see Josh proposing in a very Josh way, here’s that story: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17307293


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